Israel Left Egypt in Health by Stephen Nelson Haskell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 15, 1902

Israel Left Egypt in Health

By Stephen Nelson Haskell

S. N. HASKELL

WHEN Israel came out of Egypt, where they sat by the fleshpots and were full, and came to the station of Marah, the Lord made them the following promise: “If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee.” Ex. 15:26.

At this time the Lord brought them forth; “and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.” Ps. 105:37. The light on a reform diet had not then shone upon them. But immediately after this they came to the station in the “wilderness of sin, which is between Elim and Sinai” (Ex. 16:1), and there the Lord gave them bread from heaven. So God “rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven. Man did eat angels’ food.” Ps. 78:24, 25. While around Mount Sinai, there was no complaint of this food; but on their journey to Kadesh-barnea they said, “Our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes.” Num. 11:6. They wanted some of the old diet they had down in Egypt. “He gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul.” Ps. 106:15. Here is a wonderful lesson. First, when they had not the light which the Lord caused to shine upon them in the wilderness, they were not sick on the Egyptian diet. But after he had recommended to them what was better, and they had eaten and enjoyed the change of food, then when they went back to the old diet, for the first time recorded in the Bible they had the disease of Egypt upon them, and with it leanness of soul. So leanness of soul, disease, and their former diet were associated.

The bread that God gave them in the wilderness represented Christ; for he was “the bread which came down from heaven.” Had they seen Christ in it, they would have found in that bread a life similar to that in the tree of life, the same life which was in Christ when he came. He healed all that were sick. Now we are in the antitype of their journeying, and sooner or later disease will be unknown among the remnant. But who will experience this? Who experienced freedom from sickness in the antitype? It was not those who returned to their former Egyptian diet, neither will it be those in the last days who turn back to the diet they either have left or ought to have left years ago. In a special sense God is now calling upon his people to leave the fleshpots of Egypt, and is asking them to feed on the manna that is coming from heaven. It is the word of God in its fullness.

Do not many of us need a special education on this subject? It is time that we aroused and embraced every opportunity to inform ourselves as to this heavenly manna, and prepare for the final outpouring of the Spirit of God, that we may be ready to enter the heavenly Canaan.